Frameworks & affordances: understanding the tools of music-making

This article presents a simple and flexible model in which the tools of music-making (‘frameworks’) are viewed in terms of what they allow us to do (their ‘affordances’). The model has analytical and pedagogical applications in any discipline that involves interactions with tools. This article focuses on musical applications and will therefore be of particular interest to music educators, composers, performers and researchers seeking an alternative perspective on the relationship between music and the tools used to compose and perform it. The model deals with technology in a broad sense that includes traditional acoustic instruments and other non-electronic tools as well as electronic and computer technologies. An account of how the frameworks and affordances model could be usefully applied in teaching and research, with specific examples, is given.